wist, wit'-i, wot: The verb "to wit" in the King James Version is interchangeable with "to know," and is conjugated with a present "wot," and a past "wist." This inflection is derived from more complicated forms in the older English, and in post-Elizabethan times has become quite obsolete. (But compare the roots in "wisdom," "witness.") "Wit," then, is simply "knowledge," and "witty" is "having knowledge," although the noun and the adjective have become narrowly specialized in modern English (compare the similar evolution of "knowing," in its use as an adjective). Even in Elizabethan English, however, the indicative of "to wit" was becoming displaced by "know," and "wot" and "wist" together occur only 24 times in the King James Version (not at all in Apocrypha). the English Revised Version has retained all the New Testament examples, but in the Old
Testament has altered about half the occurrences to "know," but has followed no discoverable rule in so doing ("wot" retained only in
Jos 2:5). the American Standard Revised Version has changed to "know" throughout (Old Testament and New Testament). The infinitive "to wit" is still in use (chiefly in legal formulas) before an apposition, and the King James Version has introduced it rather frequently to clarify a construction (
Jos 17:1;
1Ki 2:32, etc.), and the Revised Version (British and American) has usually retained it (omitted in
Jos 17:1;
2Ch 4:12). In the other uses of this inf. (
Ge 24:21;
Ex 2:4) it is replaced by "to know," while the very obsolete expression in
2Co 8:1, the King James Version "We do you to wit" (i.e. "We cause you to know"; see Do), has become in the Revised Version (British and American) "We make known unto you."